After leaving Vodafone Beddoes took on senior positions with TIW and Dolphin Telecom. While at Vodafone he received an OBE for his services to the telecommunications industry and was also invited to join the Royal Academy of Engineers.

Interoperability with other networks means Virgin Mobile customers can interact with users on both Vodafone live! and Orange World chat rooms as well.

Another chat room themed around the latest news and gossip is available exclusively to customers of Virgin Mobile .

Virgin Mobile BITES product manager John Conlon said:

It is going to be very popular mostly for music sports and flirting. The difference between our service and the chat room services offered by other operators is that we will have different themed chat rooms and live event rooms.

So we will get celebrities like Green Day in there to chat to their fans for an hour-and-a-half.

It is a chance for customers to meet other people in differently themed rooms.

The BITES chat room service will be moderated by French mobile community company Freezer which will ensure that every message posted is monitored.

Said Conlon:

We want to make sure that nothing abusive or racist is posted and most especially we will ensure the service is not used by paedophiles for grooming purposes.

Paedophiles are known to use chat rooms to meet people. We are working in conjunction with the Government and the IWF so that it is safe and so users can chat comfortably Conlon explained.

Age verification processes are in place to stop under-18s accessing adult chat rooms.

You guessed it – theyre O2 promo girls working hard at the O2 Wireless Festival in Hyde Park last week

The City & Guilds Vocational Rich List compiled by Sunday Times Rich List author Philip Beresford ranks the wealth of those who have built their fortunes on a vocational qualification or apprenticeship.

Said Caudwell:

If you want to be a doctor or a solicitor or a dentist then you need to go to university. If your ambition is to be successful in business you have to be prepared to work hard understand your markets and just get out and start selling your product or service.

My City and Guilds qualifications taught me to be very analytical and disciplined on how to make projects succeed.

This was very important when I started out in business and has helped me and my businesses to be the success they are today.

Caudwells first job was as an engineering apprentice at the Michelin Tyre Company in Stoke-on-Trent in 1970.

He followed that with jobs sweeping pottery floors working at a steel factory and as a nightclub bouncer before becoming a car dealer.

Said Beresford:

Sales at his Caudwell Group leapt 45 per cent to just over 2 billion and profits rose to 30.4 million in 2002. The remaining operations should easily be worth 800 million. With sale proceeds added plus another 75 million for assets such as his 10 million Staffordshire mansion Caudwell is now easily worth 1.28 billion.

The SME and corporate indirect and dealer sales channels are apparently left unscathed.

The purge was ordered by group financial director Craig Gibson who took a close look at the department and decided there was too much wrong to be put right.

Caudwell Group managing director Tim Whiting denied that as many as 200 jobs would be lost but said the field sales teams were being streamlined.

We dont yet know if jobs will go and I wont comment on numbers. The only jobs that are going at the moment fit with the natural turnover of a business. Certainly nobody is leaving who is performing well.

Whiting claimed that the group was in the middle of a process to optimise the efficiency and performance of the corporate sales teams across the group.

He added: We have a corporate sales force for mobile and a corporate sales force for fixed and they are selling to the same customers. It could be done more efficiently.

This follows a tie-up between ATM operator LINK and software company Morse which has produced a Java application called mobileATM.

The application took more than two years to develop and will be available to subscribers on all networks by the end of the year giving them instant access to all their banking requirements.

To access the service consumers will download the free application by sending a text message to a short code or by visiting a Carphone Warehouse store where it can be uploaded to their Java handset.

MobileATM claims to be more secure than online banking. Advanced encryption technology will generate a one-off authentication code. This is said to eliminate password theft from phishing (whereby a fake web site asks for security details) or trojan attacks (where a virus is lodged in a PC to harvest data) as codes are changed every time the handset is used.

We have assessed mobileATMs current service and we are impressed with its security specification said Professor Fred Piper director of the information security group at the Royal Holloway University of London.

We think mobileATMs dual-factor authentication system has excellent potential for promoting secure mobile Internet banking.

The service which uses T-Mobile offers customers flat rates and a choice of 12 handsets.

It will at first be marketed to Toucans 140000 fixed-line and broadband customers. They will get a single bill for their fixed-line phone line broadband service and mobile phone.

As a post-paid service it will appeal to only a section of the market admitted Toucan MD Joseph Blass. But it still has a wide appeal because it is a very good offer. Its not a niche offer like other MVNOs that have launched recently. There are of course niche elements to it such as the international calling service. But there is nothing niche about 5p flat-rate anytime calling.

Toucan Mobile offers four different 12-month contracts: 50 minutes ( 15 a month) 150 minutes ( 25 a month 300 minutes ( 35 a month) and 500 minutes ( 50 per month).

Calls cost 5p per minute anytime between Toucan fixed-line and mobile customers. Calls to other landlines cost 10p a minute and calls to other mobile networks cost 25p a minute. International calls are included as bundled minutes.

Its a one-stop-shop said Blass. Its about simplicity transparency and choice. A flat rate of 5p a minute effectively offers our customers off-peak rates all day long. The possibility of combining all communication costs on a single statement make it even more compelling.

Toucan plans to roll out its brand into the Netherlands in the next few months with the roll-out of fixed-line services.

The new service called PopVid will make music videos available through DX3s distribution deal with Universal Music.

Headline acts include U2 Eminem Scissor Sisters and Keane. The Universal deal means that its content can be distributed via WAP or Java across a range of different platforms such as PCs mobile phones and memory cards.

DX3 will announce deals with high street retailers and MVNOs within the next fortnight.

It is available cross-network on multiple handsets said DX3 managing director Neil Marshall.

It doesnt need a proprietary music player in the handset. It will locate and activate whatever music player is in the device whether that is Real Player or a manufacturers own player. Its not a stream; its a progressive download. So after you have watched it you can keep it and build up a collection.

It means content including music videos is now available to the highest ever number of mobile customers regardless of whether they access the service using a 2.5G or 3G connection and irrespective of the network that provides their service.

Opera Telecom managing director Gary Corbett said: We are hoping to expand this service to make PopVid into a complete interactive mobile music magazine.

A marketing campaign is running on satellite music channels including MTV VH1 and Kiss. A phased roll-out will see more functions added to the PopVid application over time including wallpapers realtones and full audio downloads.

Impact was formed to supply communications tools to businesses across the UK and employment prospects to jobless youngsters in Yorkshire.

Managing director Dave Lowther and director of telecoms Jill Johnson have gone as well as two sales staff.

Lowther said that he left the company by mutual consent after a difference of opinion about the commercial direction the company was taking. He stated that his departure was unrelated to Johnsons exit three weeks later.

Johnson confirmed her departure but refused to comment on it.

Said Lowther: The reason that Jill left is entirely different from the reasons for my own departure. Jill hadnt been involved in the telecoms side of the business for six months. She had been working in community development. There are two different reasons for our departures.

My departure is a joint decision that has come about because of differences about the commercial direction the company was taking and how to acquire finances.

The girl in charge of the fundraising side of the business left a few months ago and it has left a vacuum.

Two members of the sales team left Impact within a week of Lowther to secure long-term futures at different jobs.

Lowther said he had helped Impact obtain a billing platform and airtime agreements and that the money was not available for further expansion. A redundancy settlement is expected within the next fortnight.

Lowther added: I did not leave under a cloud. In this industry if you leave under a cloud you dont come out with anything.

Impact was unavailable for comment.